


hot topic

by liathcat



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Banter, F/M, Irony, failing attempts at wingmanship, like that's the whole fic, mentions of adrienette, minor amounts of DJWiFi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 01:33:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10479054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liathcat/pseuds/liathcat
Summary: Getting their best friends to talk is easier said than done.





	

“I don’t understand.” Alya huffed, finally giving up on gnawing the cap of her pen to lean back on her chair with a frustrated sigh. “This is supposed to be easy!”

From across the table, Nino blinked owlishly, half-hidden behind the pile of their study materials and empty espresso cups. Confused, the boy glanced at the book in front of him - just to make sure that it hadn’t miraculously changed subject between pages - before raising an eyebrow at the reporter who was staring moodily at mess between them like it had personally slighted her. 

“What? The chemistry project? Since when, exactly?” Alya’s grades might have been miles away from his, but Nino was pretty sure that Ms. Mendeleiev’s subject was not her forte. If anything, out of their little group of friends, it was Adrien’s, but even him would have refrained from labelling their teacher’s killer tests as ‘easy’. 

“No, not _that_. Those two.” She argued, gesturing wildly at the piles of books spread between them and then at the two empty seats at their table. Her voice was a little too loud, but the café they had elected as their studying spot was quiet and semi-deserted at that time of the afternoon. The ideal place for a school project. 

A project that would have progressed a lot faster, if only half of their group had not suddenly (but not unexpectedly) bailed out of it.

Marinette’s inability to say ‘no’ to any kind of favor (this time it was Nadja Chamack’s last-minute babysitting request) and Adrien’s impossibly busy schedule always made organizing any kind of meeting unbelievably complicated.

“Ah.” The boy acknowledged with a shrug, attention already back on the problem that he’d been trying to solve for the better part of the last hour.

Except Alya didn’t seem ready to drop the subject in favour of a more scholastic one.

“I mean, it’s not like I can do all the work myself! A little help on their part would be appreciated!”

Nino forcefully drowned the urge to snide that _he was there too, thank you very much_ by taking another sip from his third (decaf, he was no Alya) mochaccino. He knew she didn’t mean to cut him off like that, homework simply made her snappish.

It had been a long afternoon.

“I’m sure that if we take care of the first part, Adrien and Marinette will be able to finish it in time for the presentation.” He tried, reassuringly.

Alya stared at him, mouth hanging open like he had just announced that Hawk Moth had left a life of crime to work as a barista, and her order was coming up.

“What are you talking about?”

It was his turn to stare at her in disbelief, “What _am I_ talking about? You know, chemistry? The project that’s due for the end of the week? The one we’ve been spending the whole afternoon on? What are _you_ talking about?”

Alya huffed, rolling her eyes like her thought process was evident and it was entirely his fault for not following her out of the blue conversation turns (she really needed to lay off on caffeine, it didn’t do any good to her mood.) 

“Marinette and Adrien? Getting them to have a normal conversation? You know, possibly with complete sentences in proper French and only a minimal amount of stuttering.”

“Oh.”

Actually, he _could_ have caught on that. It was not an unusual topic when they were alone. Alya took her wingmanship pretty seriously.

“Yeah, ‘oh’.”

Sighing, Nino picked up one of the books on her side of the table. “Can’t this wait?” he asked with a hint of desperation in his voice, “Please? I really need to get a good grade on this, we are not even halfway through and we still need to figure out if we are doing it right to begin with.” He angled the text as a makeshift barrier between himself and the reporter, and pretended to flip through its pages. 

Maybe Alya would get the clue and drop it.

No such luck.

“Oh, come on!” The grumble was followed by a clatter of (probably) empty coffee cups as she slammed her hand on the table. Cringing at the thought of coffee stains on his already ink-smudged notes, he raised his book a little too high for a comfortable read but high enough to hide the figure of his displeased study partner.

“It’s not like we are getting any work done. We have been running in circles for the last hour anyway.” 

Nino flipped another page, studiously ignoring her and making a show of frowning at the finer print of text. More clutter, and what definitely sounded like a book hitting the floor, and a hand entered his field of vision, lowering his ‘barrier’. What greeted him was the sight of Alya’s face, very, very close to his own, eyes glinting with determination. She had climbed on the table, instead of getting around it like every normal person would. In other circumstances, he might have teased her for her sense of drama. As matters stood, he was more preoccupied with restraining himself from letting out a very Marinette-like squeal.

She was very, _very_ close.

“A little pause won’t kill us.” She drew out slowly, tipping her head to the side and inching a little closer as he retreated further back into his chair. 

He swallowed. Audibly.

“Besides,” The line of her lips curved a little lower, morphing into a victorious smirk, “you are holding your book upside down, Spielberg.”

Nino sputtered, flushing deep red to the tip of his ears. Satisfied, the reporter fell back to her chair, crossing her arms with unconcealed smugness.

“Alyyyyaaaaa…”

She ignored his whine and once again bended closer (but thankfully, keeping an acceptable distance from his still blushing face) on the table, “Now that the point is clear, I think we can go back to the matter at hand.”

“Adrien and Marinette…” He grumbled, desperately trying to drown in irritation his still scrambled thoughts. 

“Exactly! I still think that they just need the right topic to hit it off." Alya insisted, not for the first time. Or tenth. It was an old argument, really.

Nino gave one last desperate look at the periodic sheet pressed between the tangle of uncertain calculations of his notes. He put them aside with a weary sigh. Alya was amazing but she simply had no brakes. She was also too stubborn to be derailed (not to mention not above playing dirty) and he was in no state to argue back.

Besides, good old love drama was much more interesting than homework.

( _And his wielding had nothing to do with Alya Césaire getting in his face and utterly ruining any chance of coherent thought, nooooooooo._ )

( _Boy, he was whipped._ )

Resigned, he leaned back in his chair as he uttered the words he was sure were going to ignite the debate, "I dunno, Al. She still messes up basic greetings..."

"Shut up, she's getting better.”

And she was. _She was_ , as Alya had reminded him at least a hundred times. By then, he had all the keypoints of that particular conversation memorised. 

First point: while greetings and school chit-chats were good groundwork, it was obvious that the 'baby steps' approach was getting them nowhere. After every little success, Marinette always reverted to a stuttering, vaguely stalkery, star-struck mess. Accidents like the game tournament and her uncle’s visit had been the real breakthrough.

Which led straight to the second point of Alya’s grand wingman scheme: the topic was key. 

It had to be something that struck a powerful chord in Marinette. Powerful enough to make her forget she was actually talking to perfect, angelic Adrien Agreste. 

(Her words, according to Alya. _Boy, she had no idea_ ). 

Just that would be enough to pave the way for future conversations that, hopefully, would trigger the epiphany that the boy was _human_ after all. 

After that, it would all be about quietly supporting from the sidelines as their respective best friends bonded. They didn't even have to worry about Adrien’s reaction. Model boy was so starved for friendship that he would eagerly jump at the first opportunity and _run_ with it.

If only they could get them to, you know, _talk_.

“...Are you even listening?”

Focusing back, he nodded, “Uh-uh, we need to get them to talk. Any idea on the topic?”

“What about fashion?” She mused, pensively tapping her lower lip with the cap of her bic. “She’s an aspiring designer, he’s a model... it’s perfect! And once you get her going, Marinette is pretty confident." 

That sounded like a gross understatement. If Nino had to pick a term, he would have gone for something like _single-mindedly unstoppable_. The class election was good proof of that.

Still…

"I don't think it will work,” he admitted, reluctantly, “he's at odds with his father right now.” Not that Adrien had said so in so many words, but his best friend had grown particularly attuned to his moods. The blond could mope and sulk, but he was rarely vocal with his frustrations. “Besides, I don't think he even really _likes_ fashion."

She shot him a flat, disbelieving look. "He's a model."

Nino squirmed in his seats, belatedly realizing that there was no way to argue that particular point without oversharing stuff about his bro he wasn’t supposed to address.

"Look, that guy has more issues than Vogue. Can we just… move on? What uhm, what else do they have in common?"

It was a flimsy attempt at waving the topic away at best, and the narrow-eyed gaze his friend sent in his direction gave the boy no room to doubt that she had caught on that. Thankfully, for once Alya thought better than press the topic.

"Uhm... Jagged Stone?"

"You saw how that went after the concert..." 

The free tickets had been a golden opportunity. At least in theory. Unfortunately concerts weren’t exactly a great ground for conversation, loud music and crowd shouts considered. Not to mention Adrien had been whisked off by his father’s assistant as soon as the performance had ended. Whatever strings Miss Sancoeur had pulled to let Adrien come at all, obviously didn’t extend to leaving the boy on the premise longer than strictly necessary. 

Still, shared musical tastes had seemed like a good common ground. Except Adrien seemed unable to breach the topic without churning out compliments about her cover, which inevitably ended with Marinette smoking from the ears. It was an (amusing, though Alya would kill him if he said it out loud) never ending circle of stutters and awkwardness.

Alya made a sound of disgust and fell back in her chair, thinking. Silence stretched for a minute, which Nino spent cautiously watching her frown so hard he could almost see the gears turning in her mind. 

It took a few more moments of gritting her teeth in belligerent contemplation for her to break the silence. "Agh! I'm out of ideas!” she blurted, throwing her hands into the air, “You are his best friend, start throwing suggestions instead of shooting down mine!" 

“Uhm…”

She had a point. 

"Well, he's pretty passionate about Ladybug,” he offered tentatively, “I mean, the guy literally gushes about her, like, all the time. He's almost worse than you.” 

Adrien usually didn’t join the class’ superhero talk unless he was personally prompted, and when she approached him, Alya tended to focus on more or less subtle wingmanship feats rather than her blog. There was a good probability that she didn’t know of his best friend’s superhero worship. And Nino was definitely _not_ going to mention how he was pretty sure that more than a generous portion of the Ladyblog’s views came from every single one of Adrien’s electronic devices. 

The DJ didn't want to find out how exactly Alya would react to that particular piece of information. As much as he loved to hear about the parisian heroic duo, a team-up between his two superhero-obsessed friends was a terrifying prospect.

“Really?! I had no idea!” As expected, the ladyblogger lighted up as the Eiffel Tower at the turn of the hour, only to quickly deflate as some flash of realization hit her. “Except Marinette doesn't really like superheroes.”

"Really? With you as best friend?"

She waved the notion away with a shrug, "She mostly endures it for my sake. I have eyes, Nino.” Alya gave a sigh, “Another dead end, uh? Well, at least I got something interesting.” She leaned a little more on the table, chin resting on her hand. "So, Adrien is a LB fan? Does he read my blog?" 

"Hands off my bro, Lois Lane. But yes and yes. I mean, _everyone_ reads your blog. And he has, like, the most embarrassing celebrity crush ever on Ladybug.”

"Crush?”

A picture of Adrien impressive collection of ladybug-themed paraphernalia flashed in his mind and Nino repressed a snort. Not trusting his voice, he simply nodded.

He had expected Alya to react to that particular piece of info with a chuckle or more excited babbling on their shared obsession, maybe a joke. The worried frown he got instead was a little perplexing. “You don't think that he...?" She gave a little unhelpful twirl with her hands, eyebrows still pinched in a thoughtful expression.

_Oh._

_Right._

_Matchmaking._

The notion of his very oblivious best friend harboring romantic feelings for _Ladybug, of all people_ , got a chuckle out of him. "Naaah, trust me. It's a celebrity crush. Just because he's sorta a celebrity himself doesn’t mean he's not entitled to one too."

She still didn't look particularly convinced. "How are you sure of that?"

"Because he's a low-key ladynoir shipper too.” _Stubbornness, your name is Alya_ , he added to himself before reassuring her once more, “Don't worry, I’m pretty sure the road is clear."

"That might be a problem too. Mari _resents_ that ship." 

"How did the two of you end up best friends, again?”

"It's because of my brilliant personality.” She replied cheerily, before turning her gaze to the state of utter mess that was their table. With a sigh, the redhead picked up a sheet of notes and smoothed it over, unsuccessfully trying to wipe away the marks left by some stray (and already dried up) drops of coffee. “I guess we should get back to work.” She said softly, making a face.

It was as close to an admission of defeat as Nino was going to get from the reporter. Apparently, homework _did_ win over love drama, in the end. Without a comment, Nino simply bent down to get the school text that had fallen on the floor during his friend previous stunt, and used it to hide his amused - if a bit resigned - smile while he looked for the chapter they had previously been working on. It was not like he _liked_ homework, either.

“Anyway,” Alya mused one last time, before reluctantly going back to their sorely neglected chemistry project, “if Ladybug is really Adrien's type, Mari sure has a long way to go…”

**Author's Note:**

> Subtle-as-a-hammer shot out to baneismydragon's "Akuma-Chais", because that fic is gold and with the café setting I simply couldn't resist.
> 
> Also, only I could write 2K words of absolutely *nothing* happening.


End file.
